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Oral neurotics are people who constantly provoke the situation of the following triad of the “mechanism of orality”:
“I shall repeat the masochistic wish of being deprived by my mother, by creating situations in which some substitute of my mother-image shall refuse my wishes.”
“I shall not be conscious of my wish to be refused and initial provocation of refusal, and shall see only that I am justified in righteous indignation and pseudo-aggression because of the refusal.”
“Afterwards I shall pity myself because such an injustice ‘can happen only to me,’ and enjoy once more psychic masochistic pleasure.”
This triad induces the Ego-strengthening mirage of aggression, while in unconscious reality the wish to be refused, deprived and mistreated is foremost. Under the disguise of pseudo-aggression the oral neurotic enjoys unconsciously masochistic self-pity and the pleasure of being refused.
A great deal of confusion exists in our literature concerning this type which I have described in dozens of publications during the last IS years. The main misunderstandings center around the following fallacies:
The original oral-aggressive wish to get is confused with the later neurotic elaboration of that wish. The neurotic-masochistic elaboration leads to the strange but clinically observable fact that these neurotics do not want “to get” but — “to be refused.” The historic sequence of events is this: wish to get — refusal or fantasy of refusal — fury and hatred — motoric helplessness — external,
* Formerly Lecturer at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Assistant Director of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Clinic.
* Formerly Lecturer at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Assistant Director of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Clinic.